"The water footprint of a person, company or nation is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the commodities, goods and services consumed by the person, company or nation."
Designer Timm Kekeritz creates something tangible (and beautiful) through his poster design for The Virtual Water Project.
Labels: Design, Design Can Change the World, Edge of Chaos
Monday, June 25, 2007
Better Red..
Back in March, an article in Advertising Age criticized the hypocrisy of (Product) Red for raising a "meager $18 million" while spending $100 million on marketing. Since then, the project's CEO Bobby Shriver has responded to this clarifying that the Red Campaign does not actually have a marketing budget (its manifesto states that it "is not a charity.it is simply a business model") and that the companies that are affiliated with it (Motorola, Apple, The Gap, and since then, Armani, Converse and American Express) are not spending any more on marketing then they normally would; it is simply that a portion of their budgets have been allocated to raising public awareness of the health crisis that is AIDS in Africa and raising money to deliver the needed medication to the women and children who can benefit from it most. Personally, I find it near genius that the campaign's focus is not so much on changing the public's moral actions as it is simply tapping into the pre-existing materialistic culture and its obsession with brand names and celebrities in order raise its funds. It is exploitation in its most noble form. Bono must be having a good chuckle about it all.
Most recently from the campaign comes this month's Vanity Fair. Guest edited by Bono, the issue features 20 different covers, shot, of course, by Annie Lebovitz, with portraits of a diverse but united-to-the-cause group of famous faces including Desmond Tutu, Brad Pitt, Maya Angelou and George Bush. By purchasing a copy of the magazine, I am informed on the (Product) Red website that I have generated "enough money to provide 74 single dose (nevirapine) treatments for mother and baby, to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child". Which is a mere drop in the bucket when 5500 Africans are dying of untreated AIDS everyday. But as Bono writes, "Our habit--and we have to kick it--is to reduce this mesmerizing, entrepreneurial, dynamic continent of 53 diverse countries to a hopeless deathbed of war, disease, and corruption...From here, what's needed is a leg up, not a handout. Targeted debt cancellation and aid mean 20 million more African kids are in school, 1.3 million Africans are on lifesaving drugs. Amazing."
Back in March, an article in Advertising Age criticized the hypocrisy of (Product) Red for raising a "meager $18 million" while spending $100 million on marketing. Since then, the project's CEO Bobby Shriver has responded to this clarifying that the Red Campaign does not actually have a marketing budget (its manifesto states that it "is not a charity.it is simply a business model") and that the companies that are affiliated with it (Motorola, Apple, The Gap, and since then, Armani, Converse and American Express) are not spending any more on marketing then they normally would; it is simply that a portion of their budgets have been allocated to raising public awareness of the health crisis that is AIDS in Africa and raising money to deliver the needed medication to the women and children who can benefit from it most. Personally, I find it near genius that the campaign's focus is not so much on changing the public's moral actions as it is simply tapping into the pre-existing materialistic culture and its obsession with brand names and celebrities in order raise its funds. It is exploitation in its most noble form. Bono must be having a good chuckle about it all.
Most recently from the campaign comes this month's Vanity Fair. Guest edited by Bono, the issue features 20 different covers, shot, of course, by Annie Lebovitz, with portraits of a diverse but united-to-the-cause group of famous faces including Desmond Tutu, Brad Pitt, Maya Angelou and George Bush. By purchasing a copy of the magazine, I am informed on the (Product) Red website that I have generated "enough money to provide 74 single dose (nevirapine) treatments for mother and baby, to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child". Which is a mere drop in the bucket when 5500 Africans are dying of untreated AIDS everyday. But as Bono writes, "Our habit--and we have to kick it--is to reduce this mesmerizing, entrepreneurial, dynamic continent of 53 diverse countries to a hopeless deathbed of war, disease, and corruption...From here, what's needed is a leg up, not a handout. Targeted debt cancellation and aid mean 20 million more African kids are in school, 1.3 million Africans are on lifesaving drugs. Amazing."
Labels: Design Can Change the World
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Canstruction Threepeat with PicniCantics
Canstruction is a fundraising event for the Food Bank where teams compete by building 10'X 10'X 8' sculptures out of cans and non-perishable goods. The two day competition ended this afternoon with our team (Industrial Brand Creative and Legends Memorabilia) taking the top prize of Juror's Choice for the third year in a row with our entry PiniCantics. More photos and our usual timelapse QT of the build are soon to follow in the days ahead. But in the meantime, if you are in the Vancouver area, I encourage you to drop by the Cruise Ship Terminal at Canada Place to view the structures and show your support.
UPDATE: More photos have been posted at Flickr and
The timelapse of our build has been posted over on Todd's site.
Canstruction is a fundraising event for the Food Bank where teams compete by building 10'X 10'X 8' sculptures out of cans and non-perishable goods. The two day competition ended this afternoon with our team (Industrial Brand Creative and Legends Memorabilia) taking the top prize of Juror's Choice for the third year in a row with our entry PiniCantics. More photos and our usual timelapse QT of the build are soon to follow in the days ahead. But in the meantime, if you are in the Vancouver area, I encourage you to drop by the Cruise Ship Terminal at Canada Place to view the structures and show your support.
UPDATE: More photos have been posted at Flickr and
The timelapse of our build has been posted over on Todd's site.
Labels: Design Can Change the World, Industrial Brand Creative, Shameless Self Promotion
Monday, February 26, 2007
What Barry Says
Expressing similar sentiments and political slant to Eugene Jarecki's Why We Fight, check out the beautifully realized, infographic-inspired piece on America's involvement in Iraq, What Barry Says by Knife Party.
Expressing similar sentiments and political slant to Eugene Jarecki's Why We Fight, check out the beautifully realized, infographic-inspired piece on America's involvement in Iraq, What Barry Says by Knife Party.
Labels: Animation, Design Can Change the World, World at Large
Monday, February 05, 2007
Edge of Chaos
As a followup to yesterday's entry:
"Functional visualizations are more than innovative statistical analyses and computational algorithms. They must make sense to the user and require a visual language system that uses colour, shape, line, hierarchy and composition to communicate clearly and appropriately, much like the alphabetic and character-based languages used worldwide between humans."
Matt Woolman
Digital Information Graphics
As a followup to yesterday's entry:
"Functional visualizations are more than innovative statistical analyses and computational algorithms. They must make sense to the user and require a visual language system that uses colour, shape, line, hierarchy and composition to communicate clearly and appropriately, much like the alphabetic and character-based languages used worldwide between humans."
Matt Woolman
Digital Information Graphics
Labels: Design, Design Can Change the World, Edge of Chaos, World at Large
Sunday, February 04, 2007
31 Days in Iraq
From this morning's New York Times, graphic designer Alicia Cheng's gut-churning visual depiction of the reported 1900+ deaths in Iraq during the first month of 2007, a toll that has markedly increased from 800 in January 2006.
From this morning's New York Times, graphic designer Alicia Cheng's gut-churning visual depiction of the reported 1900+ deaths in Iraq during the first month of 2007, a toll that has markedly increased from 800 in January 2006.
Labels: Design Can Change the World, NY Times, World at Large
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Before The World Was Whole
"It was one month after the Trips Festival at Longshoreman’s Hall when the “whole earth” in The Whole Earth Catalog came to me with the help of one hundred micrograms of lysergic acid diethylamide. I was sitting on a gravelly roof in San Francisco’s North Beach. It was February 1966. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters were waning toward Mexico. I was twenty-eight...
"...The buildings were not parallel—because the earth curved under them, and me, and all of us; it closed on itself. I remembered that Buckminster Fuller had been harping on this at a recent lecture—that people perceived the earth as flat and infinite, and that was the root of all their misbehavior. Now from my altitude of three stories and one hundred mikes, I could see that it was curved, think it, and finally feel it."
-Stewart Brand
"It was one month after the Trips Festival at Longshoreman’s Hall when the “whole earth” in The Whole Earth Catalog came to me with the help of one hundred micrograms of lysergic acid diethylamide. I was sitting on a gravelly roof in San Francisco’s North Beach. It was February 1966. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters were waning toward Mexico. I was twenty-eight...
"...The buildings were not parallel—because the earth curved under them, and me, and all of us; it closed on itself. I remembered that Buckminster Fuller had been harping on this at a recent lecture—that people perceived the earth as flat and infinite, and that was the root of all their misbehavior. Now from my altitude of three stories and one hundred mikes, I could see that it was curved, think it, and finally feel it."
-Stewart Brand
Labels: Design Can Change the World, Sixties, World at Large
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The Ox Project
My wife Jane and I launched The Ox Project today, a holiday fund raiser with the goal of purchasing 2 oxen and a plow for the Kenyan village of Kanyawegi.
My wife Jane and I launched The Ox Project today, a holiday fund raiser with the goal of purchasing 2 oxen and a plow for the Kenyan village of Kanyawegi.
Labels: Design Can Change the World, World at Large
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Future by Design
Jacque Fresco designs the civilizations of the future; and in the process, he defines how the human race will need to change in order to get there.
Jacque Fresco designs the civilizations of the future; and in the process, he defines how the human race will need to change in order to get there.
Labels: Architecture, Design, Design Can Change the World, Great Thinking
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
No More Colouring Contests
It was interesting timing when I first made contact with Catherine Morley (Cat) a few weeks back. I had submitted my site for consideration at designers-who-blog.com and received some very positive and encouraging feedback from Cat. I also became privy to her most recent project and passion: the NO!SPEC crusade.
This hit very close to home. The Canadian design community was recently looking down just such a barrel when the Design Exchange in collaboration with the Department of Canadian Heritage released a speculative national competition for the redesign of the Canadian Cultural Gateway Website. A number of the more vocal outlets (including our own over at Industrial Brand) immediately called foul. In fact, it was the commentary posted over at Slashdot's ideasonideas that served as the final straw for Cat and spurred her on to creating the NO!SPEC movement.
And a movement is exactly what it seems to be shaping into. It appears that this time around, the design community is not only circling our wagons, but we're also packing a hell of an arsenal. What it comes down to is that it is no longer acceptable for a company or organization to presume that it has the right to ask for a designer's time and talent without the guarantee of proper payment. Simple as that.
So be sure to check out the NO!SPEC site, learn more about the crusade, have your say and pass it on to others. "It is time to take a stand!"
It was interesting timing when I first made contact with Catherine Morley (Cat) a few weeks back. I had submitted my site for consideration at designers-who-blog.com and received some very positive and encouraging feedback from Cat. I also became privy to her most recent project and passion: the NO!SPEC crusade.
This hit very close to home. The Canadian design community was recently looking down just such a barrel when the Design Exchange in collaboration with the Department of Canadian Heritage released a speculative national competition for the redesign of the Canadian Cultural Gateway Website. A number of the more vocal outlets (including our own over at Industrial Brand) immediately called foul. In fact, it was the commentary posted over at Slashdot's ideasonideas that served as the final straw for Cat and spurred her on to creating the NO!SPEC movement.
And a movement is exactly what it seems to be shaping into. It appears that this time around, the design community is not only circling our wagons, but we're also packing a hell of an arsenal. What it comes down to is that it is no longer acceptable for a company or organization to presume that it has the right to ask for a designer's time and talent without the guarantee of proper payment. Simple as that.
So be sure to check out the NO!SPEC site, learn more about the crusade, have your say and pass it on to others. "It is time to take a stand!"
Labels: Design, Design Can Change the World, Shameless Self Promotion
Monday, March 20, 2006
They Still Draw Pictures
While on a completely unrelated search, I stumbled upon this fascinating website titled They Still Draw Pictures. Apparently during the Spanish Civil War, the Board of Education and the Carnegie Institute of Spain collected the drawings of school children throughout the country and in the refugee camps in France as a means of documenting the experience. While the images speak entirely for themselves, they are also accompanied by a wonderful introduction by none other than Aldous Huxley. Of note, he writes:
Looking at these images, it is at once heartwrenching and at the same time serves as a testament to the universal spirit of childhood; that even in the turmoil and terror of their lives, they found a way to express themselves through the simple act of a crayon on paper.
While on a completely unrelated search, I stumbled upon this fascinating website titled They Still Draw Pictures. Apparently during the Spanish Civil War, the Board of Education and the Carnegie Institute of Spain collected the drawings of school children throughout the country and in the refugee camps in France as a means of documenting the experience. While the images speak entirely for themselves, they are also accompanied by a wonderful introduction by none other than Aldous Huxley. Of note, he writes:
"If we look at [the drawings] with the eyes of historians and sociologists, we shall be struck at once by a horribly significant fact: the greater number of these drawings contain representations of aeroplanes. To the little boys and girls of Spain, the symbol of contemporary civilization, the one overwhelmingly significant fact in the world of today is the military plane - the plane that, when cities have anti-aircraft defenses, flies high and drops its load of fire and high explosives indiscriminately from the clouds; the plane that, when there is no defense, swoops low and turns its machine-guns on the panic-stricken men, women and children in the streets. For hundreds of thousands of children in Spain, as for millions of other children in China, the plane, with its bombs and its machine guns, is the thing that, in the world we live in and helped to make, is significant and important above all others. This is the dreadful fact to which the drawings in our collection bear unmistakable witness."This discovery led me to search further for other children's drawings from other, more recent wartorn areas which turned up results from Darfur, and Chechnya.
Looking at these images, it is at once heartwrenching and at the same time serves as a testament to the universal spirit of childhood; that even in the turmoil and terror of their lives, they found a way to express themselves through the simple act of a crayon on paper.
Labels: Art, Design Can Change the World
Monday, January 17, 2005
#6 - massive change
www.massivechange.com
"It is not about the world of design. It is about the design of the world."
-Bruce Mau
This fall, the Massive Change exhibit debuted at the Vancouver Art Gallery. In trying to answer the question "Now that we have the ability to do anything, what will we do?", a team of designers under the guidance of Bruce Mau set about not just to warn us about the critical condition of the world today, but to demonstrate how we have the resources and technology to save ourselves. It is not so much a utopian vision of the future as it is simply an optimistic and very practical one. Basically, these things have to start to happen if we want to survive.
But it does require a massive change in the way that the general population interacts with the world around them. Social Responsibility may be the buzzword of the 21st century but until there is some substance behind this concept, we will not move forward.
www.massivechange.com
"It is not about the world of design. It is about the design of the world."
-Bruce Mau
This fall, the Massive Change exhibit debuted at the Vancouver Art Gallery. In trying to answer the question "Now that we have the ability to do anything, what will we do?", a team of designers under the guidance of Bruce Mau set about not just to warn us about the critical condition of the world today, but to demonstrate how we have the resources and technology to save ourselves. It is not so much a utopian vision of the future as it is simply an optimistic and very practical one. Basically, these things have to start to happen if we want to survive.
But it does require a massive change in the way that the general population interacts with the world around them. Social Responsibility may be the buzzword of the 21st century but until there is some substance behind this concept, we will not move forward.
Labels: Design, Design Can Change the World
